


The Nature of the Loss

by Kaile (rcs)



Category: Ragnarok Online
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-07
Updated: 2011-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-17 17:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rcs/pseuds/Kaile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>and the echos it began.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nature of the Loss

Their house always smelled like sunshine and herbs and bread-- he came home to it every day and it became a ritual. Open the door, take a deep breath, kiss his wife hello. Sometimes he kicked snow from his boots, sometimes he kicked boots from his feet, but always the same three things first-- open, breathe, wife. _For a rich girl_ , he'd tease Chalrys, _you sure do know how to make a man feel welcome_. She'd laugh and kick her feet and toss her tawny hair as he picked her up, spun her around-- his beautiful, capable, amazing wife. The love of his life, the woman who'd given up everything-- an inheritance that would have guaranteed she'd never have to work in her life, a rich home, never having to go to bed hungry-- for him. His blessings were many, and Chalrys was the chiefest among them.

And when she confided in him, too joyful to hold back the news, that she was carrying their first child nestled below her heart, he didn't think he could be happier. Nights spent curled up in their little bed, piled high with quilts, holding one another and thinking of names. Chal wished their baby would have his eyes. He would be thrilled if her hair were passed down. He began working extra hours at the schoolhouse, saving up zeny for the cost of a good doctor, the supplies to make a solid cradle. The things they needed to become a family. He sold his books, began digging out extra space for their home. Life was hard, but it had never been better.

Until that night. The scent of smoke had crept in and he'd woken up to the door being pounded down. Chalrys screamed as he picked up his sword and the snow blew in, chilling his skin as he stood in front of the bed, in pants and barefoot. He didn't stand a chance against the four men, heavily armed, who came in-- unarmored as he was, their daggers had no resistance as they cut him, and a swordhilt to the forehead later, he was on the ground and watching through the red haze as Chalrys tried to stop them, picking up his sword-- too heavy for her-- and holding it in front of the heavy curve of her belly. They batted it away easily, throwing her to the ground. He prayed they'd stop there.

They didn't. The world spun around him as he watched Chalrys scream and kick, and then there was her blood dark on her legs, her nightdress shoved out of their way. She cried and he felt pain as surely as if he had been taking it from her, but he knew he wasn't-- that she wasn't screaming from fear anymore, but from pain and from humiliation-- the rage he felt at himself, at his body for not getting up, not taking orders. Her screams went on and on, and the laughs of the men as the house filled with the smoke of the burning town, became his world, the blood soaking their marriage bed dead in his line of sight too much to bear. It felt like days, though it was probably only hours, before the men left, probably leaving them for dead.

But they'd only been somewhat right. It took hours on its own, but Saibern managed to get to his feet, weaving and shrinking from the screaming headache, not bothering to wipe blood gone tacky from his brow as he stumbled to Chal's side. She was alive. He thought it a mercy.

He was wrong. Even as the town attempted to band together, Chal got worse-- sometimes keening from pain, always feverish. The wounds they'd inflicted on her-- the damage they'd done-- infected, and the town had nothing to spare for it. No matter what he tried, it wasn't the concentrated potions he needed; she spent her days delirious, crying for her father (dead in the attack), her mother (left crippled). But most often, she called for him, though her brown eyes were looking straight at him, bright with tears and fever. Her entire body was swollen and enflamed, her skin hot and dry to the touch. She couldn't drink the water he brought her, so he would bring in little bits of snow, letting it melt on her tongue and trickle down her throat. Half the time, she vomited that back up. He considered the nights she slept a triumph, because that meant she had a little rest from whatever demons she saw.

Two weeks after she'd been brutally assaulted, their child lost, she died as he held her hand. It hadn't been a question of if, but when-- and even so, he spent the next few days completely insensible; the elders of the village handled the funeral and kept an eye on the young man they were sure would follow his wife and child into the abyss. But madness was hard to sustain from grief alone; one night, a week after her burial, Saibern looked up from the table he was currently destroying and saw her.

She was smiling, a child-- a violet-eyed, tawny-haired child-- in her arms. Her gown was white, so white he could barely look on it, wings the color of the sky when dawn was brightest. She was healed-- not only healed, but in perfect health.

"Saibern," her voice called to him as his arms strained to touch her but never quite managed. "Saibern, wake up."

And then he woke. It was as if he'd dreamt the madness, except for the splintered shards of what had been his life and the stains of blood on the floor, soaked too firmly into the wood to be anything but real. He didn't recognize the cries, the keening sobs, as his own-- but eventually even tears ran dry. When he left the house, he ignored the elders-- ignored everything-- and walked straight to the graves, snowdrops just beginning to peek through the melting snow. Her grave, and a smaller one. Her name, clumsily carved on her own wooden gravestone-- Chalrys Adler. And nothing on the child's grave.

He wasn't long for the town after that, and no one living there blamed him; when he packed his things and headed south to Al de Baran, no one tried to stop him. Their tiny town, only just starting to rebuild, held too many painful memories. He didn't say goodbye to anyone, and no one watched him leave, but every year, they saw to it that the graves were well-maintained, and occasionally they would receive a crate of potions. No one had to question from whence they came-- but just as true, no one saw Saibern again.


End file.
